Semiconductor wafers, such as silicon, germanium, and III-V material wafers, are used in the fabrication of integrated circuits, where the wafer effectively acts as a substrate upon which microelectronic devices can be formed using various semiconductor processes such as photolithography (e.g., patterning, etching, depositing, etc), epitaxy, doping, polishing, and other such known processes. Typically, a number of identical electronic devices are formed on a single wafer, ranging from tens to hundreds to even thousands of devices per wafer, depending on the size of the device die.
Once formed on the wafer, the devices can be electrically tested and then sorted into passing and non-passing die, using various wafer probing techniques. The wafer can then be singulated into individual die. The singulation process can be carried out using known techniques such as scribing and breaking, dicing or wire saws, or laser cutting. A perpendicular Cartesian grid is used for delineating the individual die, so that during the singulation process the die can be cut in a linear manner across this standard grid. Following the singulation process, the individual die can then be encapsulated into suitable chip packaging, to provide discrete integrated circuits.